In the second quarter of 2025, monitoring added 17 projects to the Tracker, 10 of which reported their value, amounting to R26.9 billion. Projects were registered across mining, manufacturing, services and utilities. Employment opportunities were recorded from three projects, with most jobs - 852 jobs - reported under Bid Window 3 (BW3) of the Department of Electricity and Energy Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP). In addition, 13 pre-existing projects were updated.

Monitoring added 15 projects in the first quarter of 2025. The total investment value, from the eight projects that published values, amounted to R17.7 billion. The Tracker recorded investments in manufacturing, services, mining, electricity, and agriculture for the quarter. Employment opportunities were recorded from one project – 55 jobs from the Soufflet Malt malting facility.  The Tracker also updated 13 existing projects.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) remains a critical source of capital and technology transfer for South Africa. As of 2023, the top five sources of FDI are the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, and Germany. These countries collectively account for over R1.4 trillion in inward FDI stock. This brief outlines recent trends and sectoral dynamics across these leading investor countries, drawing on data from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) FDI Tracker.

Monitoring added 27 projects to the Tracker in Q4 2024. The announced investment value amounts to R56.6 billion, from 22 projects. Investment was recorded in utilities, services and manufacturing. There are 13 841 reported job opportunities, recorded from 20 projects, mostly linked to the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) Bid Window 7, and the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP) Bid Window 2.

In the third quarter of 2024, 16 projects were added to the Tracker. Investment amounts to R17.3 billion, from six projects that reported values. Investment was registered across mining, manufacturing, utilities and services. A total of 1300 potential employment opportunities were recorded from three projects. Monitoring further updated 17 pre-existing projects.

Monitoring recorded 11 projects in the second quarter of 2024. The number of projects that published investment values was limited and only three projects account for the R8 billion recorded for the quarter. Furthermore, only one project reported on employment, announcing 200 temporary jobs. The Tracker further updated 17 pre-existing projects.

In the first quarter of 2024, monitoring added 20 projects to the Tracker. However, only a handful of projects published investment values. This resulted in a substantial underestimate in the amount recorded for the quarter – R4.1 billion derived from five projects. Monitoring updated 15 pre-existing projects this quarter.

The Tracker added 23 projects in the fourth quarter of 2023 with a pledged investment value amounting to R478.7 billion recorded from 12 projects. The other 11 projects have not yet reported their respective project values. Monitoring updated 28 pre-existing projects to the Tracker this quarter.

In the third quarter of 2023, the Tracker added 28 projects that are at varying stages of development. The total pledged investment value is R53.5 billion recorded from 11 projects. (The investment values of the  remaining 17 projects have not yet been disclosed.) There are five projects that reported employment opportunities that sum up to 7533 jobs, of which 887 are permanent and 6646 are temporary. The majority of these jobs (5200) result from the construction of Amazon’s headquarters. Monitoring further updated 10 pre-existing projects in the Tracker.

The pledged investment value recorded in the second quarter of 2023 amounts to just over R259.7 billion, attributable to 27 of the 30 projects added to the Tracker this quarter. The three remaining projects did not report investment values. The 5th South African Investment Conference took place in April 2023 and the pledges made at the event make up over 75% of the projects recorded. External to the conference, a further seven projects were recorded. This quarter, eight projects previously added to the Tracker were updated, and monitoring recorded 3 749 employment opportunities comprising 3 249 permanent and 500 temporary jobs.